Butterfly farm to spread its wings

Encinitas vivarium will close June 23 and relocate to a new, bigger location in Vista this summer

The Monarch Program and Hatchery currently located in Encinitas will be relocating to Vista to a more accessible location that will allow for more sun for the butterflies and allow for more research and education programs to enhance community awareness for the butterfly. A fundraiser to help support the move will be held on June 22 - 23, 11-3pm at the Encinitas location.
Amy McDonald

The Monarch Program and Hatchery currently located in Encinitas will be relocating to Vista to a more accessible location that will allow for more sun for the butterflies and allow for more research and education programs to enhance community awareness for the butterfly. A fundraiser to help support the move will be held on June 22 - 23, 11-3pm at the Encinitas location.

ENCINITAS  In butterfly terminology, The Monarch Program is just about ready for its chrysalis stage.

The 21-year-old butterfly vivarium in Encinitas will close its doors on Sunday, June 23, so it can metamorphose over the next few months into an expanded, state-of-the-art education center, hatchery and garden, about 12 miles away in Vista.

For founder and director David Marriott, the transformation is long overdue.

“I just can’t wait to get over to the new location. It’s really exciting what we’ll be doing there and the potential for growth is enormous,” said Marriott, 61, a self-trained lepidopterist with a doctorate in musicology. He founded the nonprofit Monarch Program in 1990, and a year later, opened the small butterfly farm and classroom on the grounds of a nursery on Ocean View Avenue.

Although the price for the space was right — Marriott’s benevolent landlord John Renaker, 98, has never charged rent — the location is less than ideal for the educational programs Marriott offers (grade school classes visit virtually every weekday from April through mid-November). The nursery is on a residential street with no parking and the only signage is a piece of cardboard with the word “butterflies” and an arrow scrawled on it.

It has also become less inviting for the monarchs and the eight to 10 other butterfly species Marriott raises on the property. The roof of the greenhouse where he grows “host” plants that the butterflies use for feeding and egg-laying has collapsed, and he can’t spray the invading pests (aphids, thrips and leaf miners) because pesticides would kill the butterflies. Also, the tall trees that have grown up around the property now block much of the sunlight that the butterflies need to thrive and reproduce.

On Monday, Marriott walked around the decaying butterfly aviary — a 1,200-square-foot screened-in garden — and talked about its early days with wistful reverie.

“When we opened this back in the ‘90s, it was really something. People loved it. They’d never seen anything like it,” he said. “But it’s gotten old and funky.”

Pam Hernandez, a first-grade teacher at Conway Elementary School in Escondido, has been bringing school groups to the Monarch Program every year since about 1994. Students sit through a video and oral presentation, then go into the vivarium where they can feed watermelon to the butterflies, hold caterpillars and sometimes see a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis.

“I don’t think we’ve ever gone and not had a butterfly land on one of the children,” Hernandez said. “It’s very hands-on, short, simple and sweet, and it really helps the kids get up close to learn about butterflies.”

Marriott first collected butterflies as a boy. He returned to the hobby in 1984 when his son turned 4. “We got him a net and we would go out together to net butterflies. But before long I was the one running ahead of him to catch the butterflies and he eventually lost interest.”

Marriott began studying and teaching about the migration of monarchs from the Western U.S. to Mexico, and as public interest grew, he launched The Monarch Program. Operating on a shoestring budget of just $33,000 a year, the Monarch Program offers education programs and tours, tags and tracks monarch migration (each released butterfly has a tiny sticker folded over one wing bearing an 800 number for trackers to call), and it has a bustling hatchery.

Each week, Marriott sells about 100 monarch chrysalises to customers such as the Natural History Museum of L.A. County and San Francisco’s Conservatory of Flowers. He also hatches another 50 or so monarchs in the vivarium so visitors can see the insects in every stage of their development (from egg to caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly in about 5 weeks).

Three months ago, a former employee introduced Marriott to La Costa resident Tom Merriman, the property manager for a new five-acre nursery/farm project under way at Smilax Road and Oleander Avenue in Vista. Merriman said he wants the multiphase project to become a destination for more than just plant-buyers. Already, there is a farm stand, a hydroponic greenhouse, an art studio and a palm and plant nursery. The Monarch Program will become the centerpiece of the gently sloped property.

Over the next few weeks, Merriman said he will build a butterfly aviary. By fall, he promises a classroom, and within a year, he’ll create a meandering butterfly garden where visitors can learn about and buy the types of plants that attract the delicate insects. Merriman said he understands the very limited budget that Marriott has to work with. He said he’s more interested in bringing people to the property than rental income, so he sees Marriott’s presence as both a traffic generator and a resource for butterfly gardening knowledge.

Donna Billingsley, a second-grade teacher at Pacific Rim Elementary in Carlsbad, has been bringing her students to the Monarch Program for the past five years. She said she’s looking forward to the more up-to-date vivarium, as long as the price for school groups stays as affordable as it was in the past.

To help raise money for the move, Marriott will host a fundraising event on Saturday and Sunday. Plants, butterfly art and other items will be for sale, and he’s encourages families to come in for one last look and to make a tax-deductible donation.

“This has been a great location for us for a very long time, but it’s time to go,” he said. “We need to be more contemporary and have more activities and this is a great opportunity for us.”